MEDIA GALLERY

M&E Thursday Talk – Building Peace in the Plateau State

On Thursday, January 12th, 2017, Claire Ugo-Ike & Agnieszka Fal-Dutra Santos of Mercy Corps hosted the M&E Thursday Talk series to lead a discussion on “The role of religion & religious leaders in resolving farmer-pastoralist conflict and building peace in the Plateau State.”

Like other states in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria, Plateau State experiences persistent, low-intensity conflict, which sometimes escalates into more widespread and intense violence. In addition, ethnicity, religion and lifestyle are often closely interlinked in Plateau State, causing farmer-pastoralist conflict to take on an ethnic and religious dimension.

The research carried out by Mercy Corps was designed to address the questions of how and in what ways religious leaders can contribute to sustainable peace. It adopted a qualitative approach to understanding the interaction between religion, religious leadership and peacebuilding in Plateau State.

This webinar shared the findings of the research and created a dialogue among experts and practitioners about how religion and religious leaders are relevant to conflict and peace in different settings.

About the Speakers:

Claire Ugo-Ike is the Head of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for the Conflict Management programs at Mercy Corps Nigeria. She oversees the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning strategy for the Conflict Management programs and has been leading the development and implementation of M&E framework for Mercy Corps’ Interfaith Peacebuilding in Northern Nigeria program. She oversaw the planning and implementation of the IPNN research as well as other related conflict management researches.

Agnieszka Fal-Dutra Santoswas an International Research Fellow with Mercy Corps Nigeria. Under Claire’s supervision, she developed and led the research on the role of religion and religious leaders’ in peacebuilding in Plateau State. Agnieszka is passionate about making peace inclusive and sustainable, and is interested in the intersection between religion and conflict. Prior to her work with Mercy Corps, she has worked on peacebuilding in several contexts, including Serbia and Jordan, as well as in headquarters in Brussels and New York with International Crisis Group.